Red Faced Buddha wrote:I couldn't find any site supporting your claim. I checked quite a few but it was never brought up. Are you even sure they did it? Not just some renegade? There are hardened criminals who will gut you and burn your home down, but go as far as defecting when it comes to women and children (though there are some people who will kill women and children, my point is that even among several hardened criminals, that is too far.)

The leadership of Golden Dawn are hardened criminals. That is why I refer to them as a criminal organisation. Apart from owning brothels (ie they are pimps), running protection rackets, etc... some of them have a REALLY serious criminal past cf here.

Have any more links besides Dharma Wheel? Maybe a news article? Don't worry if it's in Greek, I'll use Google translate.

A person once asked me why I would want to stop rebirth. "It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want to be reborn."I replied. "Wanting to be reborn is like wanting to stay in a jail cell, when you have the chance to go free and experience the whole wide world. Does a convict, on being freed from his shabby, constricting, little cell, suddenly say "I really want to go back to jail and be put in a cell. It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want that?"

Corporatism can be either left or right. There is socialist Corporatism, capitalist Corporatism, even Christian Corporatism.

A person once asked me why I would want to stop rebirth. "It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want to be reborn."I replied. "Wanting to be reborn is like wanting to stay in a jail cell, when you have the chance to go free and experience the whole wide world. Does a convict, on being freed from his shabby, constricting, little cell, suddenly say "I really want to go back to jail and be put in a cell. It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want that?"

In aparte, but related to that discussion you have. There were a time when you could feel a large majority of peoples against any kind of facho-terrorism when those sometime did happen. In France for exemple, when few years ago some hooligan, shaved head, skin idiot did paint nazi signs on graves in a jewish cemetery, the day after a large community of peoples of different opinions and so on, marched together in the street, a mass of peoples were present to say never again, never even think about. Time is now over, I can hear here and there, "opinions" about strangers, others. Here and there italians ar so, german are so, not to speak about muslims or tzigane, and so on. But what scare (relatively) more is that that kind opinion comes from peoples that were not supposed to think that way ... non-conformists, left intellectuals, and even Buddhists (or pretending to be). And not to speak about many little details in the day to day life that makes me think that there is a high risk to have actual dictatures (or so) in our (supposed to be free) countries, in the time coming.

Sönam

By understanding everything you perceive from the perspective of the view, you are freed from the constraints of philosophical beliefs.By understanding that any and all mental activity is meditation, you are freed from arbitrary divisions between formal sessions and postmeditation activity.- Longchen Rabjam -

As mentioned by some in this thread, Julius Evola's political positions are those of figures such as Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortes, the Roman Empire, Chinese Empires, ancient Hindu Empires, feudal Japan, etc. This isn't fascism but rather the traditional order, i.e. hierarchical, aristocratic, monarchical states in which bourgeois or economic interests are subjugated to the spiritual and military castes. This was the form of government and society that existed in nearly every civilization prior to the Western European "Enlightenment" era and the French Revolution.

I can't see why such a political view point should be incompatible with Buddhism when the Mauryan Empire, the Kushan Empire, the Tang Empire, medieval Korean kingdoms, feudal Japan, etc. were all manifestations of such a traditional order and also golden ages of Buddhism. Buddhism, like the Hindu concepts of yugas or Hesiod's concepts of ages, believes in a progressive decline as time goes on, something else Evola posited. Leftists on the other hand are often proponents of evolutionary "progressivism" who believe that society is constantly improving. This is at odds with the Buddhist view. Leftists also believe social activism and progressive policies can change society for the better and eventually lead to a utopian ideal free from such things as discrimination and war. This is trying to improve samsara rather than transcend it, also at odds with the Buddhist view (along with being completely naive.)

I also don't think any political grouping has a claim of moral superiority over any other. Far-left groups have actually caused more bloodshed, death, and destruction in the 20th century (Bolsheviks, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.) than fascists, the latter of which was largely a movement in response to the former. Modern liberal democracies aren't paragons of morality either.

Ultimately Evola's value lies in his metaphysical and spiritual writings. His book "Doctrine of Awakening" is one of the better books on early Buddhism out there, and most of the topics he writes about are filled with clarity and insight far above the watered down New Age trash that proliferates modern spiritual literature. People just like to dismiss him out of hand because he falls politically into a spectrum which has now become pariah in the West, which merely reveals their close-mindedness and dogmatism for the prevailing cultural paradigm on what is considered an acceptable political view to hold.

Though for a Buddhist who has actually renounced the world and become a monk/yogi/ascetic, I think letting go of politics and political views is positive if not necessary.

Last edited by Vidyaraja on Tue Aug 20, 2013 4:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think you really understand that the criticism is of what Evola was politically, or what fascism is culturally, perhaps not even that fascism itself begins largely as a cultural movement, in specific circumstances..so the talk of "like the Roman Empire" is nonsensical. This is what facists claim..but it is not true, ironically the desire to politically bring about a return to a mythical past is as modern a trend as Communism. You assume people are just making him a pariah, or rejecting his ideas out of some knee jerk reaction. He was not incidentally fascist, people like him WERE the cultural wing of fascism. Even today he is considered by a chunk of the far right to be one of the cultural go to guys, there are whole albums by right wing bands dedicated to him and celebrating things like Men Among The Ruins.. The fact that some fascists didn't like him is in no way evidence to the contrary if you know the history of fascism.

If you want to continue to defend Evola that's great, but a cursory glance at his bio, and looking at those who utilize his ideas today, examining the ideas themselves I think will show anyone with an inquiring mind where they lead. Or at least one place they lead, I concede that they could possibly lead in other directions, but the modern history of "go back in time" movements shares a kinship with revolutionary movements in general that involves bloodshed, insanity, and eventually a kind of political cannibalism.

You can't just erase context because you like his writings, I know there is some merit there in the same way as many early "traditionalists" that explored Eastern ideas, but there is great darkness is his ideas as well IMO that is tied in with some nasty, reactionary cultural history. Can we also make Marx blameless by your standards? He certainly was no in the streets revolutionary fighter!

I agree that far left ideology has a ton of blood on it hands as well, but you are either being disingenuous about Evola's ideas and their connection to fascism, or you have simply bought into his arguments without looking at the larger political context they came from.

In short, just being a "traditionalist" does not make one a fascist, but once you start holding these views of going back in time, and wishing to bring about a violent change in the social order to re order society back to a mythical golden age..you are pretty much a fascist, and that is the position that Evola comes from. ANd once again yes, with a few exceptions revolutionary left movements also have an appalling history.

Johnny Dangerous wrote:I don't think you really understand what Evola was politically, or what fascism is culturally, perhaps not even that fascism itself begins largely as a cultural movement, in specific circumstances..so the talk of "like the Roman Empire" is nonsensical. This is what facists claim..but it is not true, ironically the desire to politically bring about a return to a mythical past is as modern a trend as Communism. You assume people are just making him a pariah, or rejecting his ideas out of some knee jerk reaction. He was not incidentally fascist, people like him WERE the cultural wing of fascism. Even today he is considered by a chunk of the far right to be one of the cultural go to guys, there are whole albums by right wing bands dedicated to him and celebrating things like Men Among The Ruins.. The fact that some fascists didn't like him is in no way evidence to the contrary if you know the history of fascism.

I do understand what Evola was politically because I have read all of his works in English (except his short pamphlet on Taoism.) Can you say the same? Evola was critical of fascism and wrote critical works of fascism. He was involved in fascism culturally because he wanted to guide and mold fascism into the traditional order, i.e. wanted to transform the fascist movement into something else. Himmler kept a dossier on him which saw him as a threat, saying he was a Roman who wished for the return of the old aristocracy and order. Whether fascists are inspired by him or not is of little consequence to his actual views. Fascism is a modern ideology and Evola had disdain for the modern world, seeing the modern world as the height of Kali Yuga and the actual opposite of the traditional order, especially of the ancient past, which is what he admired and based his views on.

Johnny Dangerous wrote:I agree that far left ideology has a ton of blood on it hands as well, but you are either being disingenuous about Evola's ideas and their connection to fascism, or you have simply bought into his arguments without looking at the larger political context they came from.

I am apolitical these days as my aspirations in this life are entirely spiritual. Getting caught up in the emotions that go with politics doesn't go well with what I want to achieve in this life. That said, I don't look at fascism as any worse or more evil than the far-left or modern liberal democracies despite that opinion being heresy to the modern religion of political correctness. Indeed, the traditional values of the fascist regimes, even in if their tendency was to the extreme, are preferable to me to modern values. If I were political, I'd be a traditional monarchist and supporter of the old order like Evola, Cortes, de Maistre, etc. over a modern liberal-democrat of Communist/Marxist any day.

Johnny Dangerous wrote:In short, just being a "traditionalist" does not make one a fascist, but once you start holding these views of going back in time, and wishing to bring about a violent change in the social order to re order society back to a mythical golden age.

If you read Evola's writings, he never believed that through effort, violent or non-violent, one could reorder society back to the golden age. He wrote entire books putting forth that view. He was a firm believer in the metaphysical doctrine of ages and in such a view no amount of human effort can change the natural law of cyclical time and decline. Evola believed that positive action could only be achieved within a small spiritual elite through the practice of ascetic values and through spiritual awakening. From the concluding chapter of his book "The Doctrine of Awakening":

We think it possible that should the course of history, in spite of appearances, not deteriorate further, this may perhaps be due, less to the efforts and direct action of groups of men and leaders of men, than to the influences proceeding, through the paths of the spirit, from the secret realizations of a few nameless and remote ascetics, in Tibet or on Mount Athos, among the Zen, or in some Trappist or Carthusian cloister of Europe. To an awakened eye, to an eye capable of seeing with the sight of one on the Further Shore, these same realizations would appear as the only steady lights in the darkness, as the only peaks emerging, calm and sovereign, above the seas of mist down in the valleys. Every true ascetic realization becomes inevitably transformed into a support—an invisible one, but for all that nonetheless real and efficacious—for those who, on the visible plane, resist and struggle against the forces of an obscure age.